Page:In a winter city, by Ouida.djvu/304

Rh thought sadly to himself. "She must care awfully about him to be so angry."

He waited all alone many minutes; he was sincerely sorry; perhaps he had been coarse; he had not meant to be; only, the idea of her talked about, and with lovers!—just like all those other women whom their husbands or brothers ought to strangle—it was only fashion, they said, only the way of the world, all that immorality;—"Damn the world," he said to himself, ruffling his beard in sad bewilderment.

He scribbled a trite, rough, penitent note, and sent it to her by her maid. They brought him a closed envelope: when he opened it he found only his own note inside—sent back without any word.

Honest Clairvaux's eyes filled with tears.

"She'll never see me again before I go tonight," he thought to himself, tossing his poor little rejected morsel into the wood fire. "And I must go to-night, because of poor little Chevy. How horrid it is!—I couldn't be angry like that with her!"

He stood some moments more, knitting his